


no headstone

by odinstark



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Blood, Blood and Injury, Burial Mounds, Crying, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Rain, Starvation, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:53:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21877690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odinstark/pseuds/odinstark
Summary: it's almost the seven year anniversary of the show ending, I don't know what else you expected
Relationships: Leon & Merlin (Merlin), Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 34





	no headstone

It was a horrible, gnawing pain. From the deepest part of his stomach, it rippled up the muscle walls, burning every cell under its touch. It wrapped around his ribs, like string around a bundle of twigs, growing tighter and tighter until he thought he heard bones snap between the rain pellets. Hunger consumed every single grain of food Merlin had eaten, and was rampaging a war against his organs, who battled fiercely against the feast. 

His heart stopped beating three days ago, and so did Arthur's. The sharp, electric sliced up his spine, and entered his temples, bouncing around his skull like a bird trapped in a cage, nails scraping against bone, like chalk on a board, except much, much worse.

Rain soaked into every fibre of his clothing, not a single thread was dry. His hair was plasteret to his forehead, the force giving the tendrils no opportunity to curl up again. Icey chills made their home in his joints, and the cold froze his fingers and feet from the inside out. His knees were coated in sand after three days no movement, just the lake's edge, lapping at his skin.

There was a lot more silence in Camelot than what Merlin remembered. And it made his head echo with noises that weren't happening, ringing, static filtering in and out of his ears, like a conversation dipping in and out of focus.

There were huge, dark circles under his eyes, black, purple, brown, shining with old tears and new rain. He didn't open his mouth long enough to drink the pouring water to be able to cry more tears. His teeth were glued shut by a guilty heart and a heavy soul.

A gold handle glimmered in the weak sunlight, the pommel dripping with droplets, the blade unaffected by the sand.

It took one look at the sword and the lake ran red. No boat this time, no slow release, no final goodbyes. No fire. 

It wasn't a cowards death. But still the easy way out. 

His body was found hours water, skin pruned pink in reddish water, by a knight with golden hair. The sword was throne in the lake in anger as he cradled the body against his chest, and it was caught by an unseen hand. The chainmail was crimson, no rain to wash away the new blood. 

He was buried at the shoreline, with no headstone. 

It was fitting.


End file.
